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We have published our Ombudsman decisions here. These stories will give you a sense of what happens when a formal decision is needed to resolve a complaint. This collection of decisions will grow over time.
If you want to know more about the types of complaints we see, read more on our statistics page. Or if you want to know more about how we resolve complaints informally, click here to read our stories that show how we've been able to help people with different kinds of problems and complaints.
Missing papers and deadlines
Area of law: Immigration and asylumComplaint reason(s): Immigration and asylum
Remedy:To pay compensation of £50 and apologise for the inconvenience/distress
caused
Outcome: Ombudsman's decision rejected by the complainant
Mr J applied to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) for a right to reside in the UK and used a firm of solicitors to handle the paperwork for him. But something went wrong. Key papers weren't delivered to UKBA on time for some reason, so Mr J's application missed an important deadline. As it turned out, this didn't affect the outcome of his bid to stay in the UK, but it was very worrying for him at the time.
He complained in particular that his solicitors had failed to submit his application to the UKBA when asked to do so, had made little or no progress with the application over a period of about 10 months and, in the meantime, had failed to keep his papers safe.
The Ombudsman looked into the complaint after we heard nothing from Mr J in response to a recommendation report from one of our investigators. That report found that the firm could have done more to make sure the application had been safely received by the UKBA but that they had otherwise acted reasonably. The Ombudsman agreed and concluded that the firm should apologise to Mr J for failing to ensure safe receipt of his application and pay him £50 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused. This took into account the fact that the firm had by then waived their bill.
Mr J rejected the Ombudsman's decision, so nothing more could be done about his complaint and the case file was closed.
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